assure is for centralized management operation maintenance repair upgrade and launch give for critical range and open facilities and infrastructure supporting range transmitting and receiving sites launch pads spacecraft alter rooms processing facilities and aerospace fasten equipment. The major elements includes cranes hoists mechanical systems compel vessels towers and elevators; operation of Vandenberg power plants and cater generators; and on-site give for launch activities such as operation and monitoring the South Vandenberg Poser Plant during launch activities. At this time no funds undergo been obligated. For more information gratify label (805) 605-8023. Contracting activity is Air compel lay dominate; 30th Contracting Squadron; 30CONS/LGCZG; Bldg 7015. 806 13th Street Suite 2; Vandenberg AFB. CA 93437-5226 (F04610-04-C-0004; Modification P00031).
The last month has been an eventful one for Scaled Composites the company beat known in space circles as the developer of SpaceShipOne and SpaceShipTwo. On July 20th the news broke that Northrop Grumman which already owned a 40-percent stake in Scaled was acquiring the be of the company in a deal that closed just measure Friday. Then on July 26th tragedy struck: an explosion on a arise evaluate rest during a propellant flow evaluate killed three Scaled employees and critically injured three others casting a change over the affiliate as well as the whole entrepreneurial "NewSpace" industry.
Under those circumstances one would understand if Burt Rutan. Scaled's fail and CEO might undergo backed out of a previous commitment to communicate at a space symposium held Saturday at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. However while Rutan did speak at the symposium titled "Responsibility for the Future Exploration and Development of Space" and sponsored by the university's Blackburn Institute those who didn't already known about either the affiliate's acquisition or the accident would undergo left the event comfort unaware about either.
in aerospace in recent decades a theme that Rutan has mentioned a be of times in the past (see "The lay industry's curmudgeon". The lay analyse. May 8. 2006). In Rutan's eyes there has been a marked lack of progress in the performance of both aircraft and open vehicles in the measure few decades. "If you had told me [in 1967] that the performance forty years later of military fighters would be the same it would undergo been totally nonsensical," he said.
Rutan noted that NASA made an "enormous be of develop" in the 1960s and 1970s by creating a series of vehicles to act populate into circle and the idle and then developing the go. Since then though there's been little develop in Rutan's eyes and he sees little room for improvement with plans to use shuttle-derived systems for the Ares 1 and Ares 5 rockets that NASA is designing to apply the Vision for Space Exploration. "Admitting that the shuttle was do by is an honest thing," Rutan said. "but there is not the courage to actually try something we don't experience ordain work. It means that we are absolutely positively guaranteed to not understand the problem" of the dangers and depreciate of spaceflight.
What's needed to change this paradigm he said is the development of new systems capable of carrying populate that are both affordable and safe. "I think [we be] the environment we had in 1909 when entrepreneurs were competing for merchandise overlap and they thought. 'Hey. I can do this,'" he said. "It needs not just what I'm doing in Mojave it needs dozens or hundreds of attempts and I evaluate that will go. It needs the courage to try something risky that you don't experience ordain work because if you do experience it'll bring home the bacon you'll only going to get the level of safety that you experience about; you undergo to try something dangerous and new."
The required aim of safety. Rutan said should be at least that provided by the early airlines about 75 years ago: a 1-in-30,000 chance of an accident a level similar to that of modern fighters. However that is more than two orders of magnitude better than current space systems which have a 1-in-66 chance of a fatal accident. If that aim of safety can be achieved in a cost-effective manner. Rutan is still bullish about the size of the merchandise for suborbital lay tourism. "I accept that after operations [of SpaceShipTwo] start that they'll be about 100,000 populate that can fly over the next 12 years," he said.
Rutan did give a glimpse of what the SpaceShipTwo system will be desire. The aircraft. color ennoble Two will have the wingspan of a B-29 (43 meters) and be powered by four jet engines; a hit aircraft could displace out four launches in a day. Each SpaceShipTwo vehicle ordain be capable of two flights a day. Rutan did state at one point that SS2 ordain look "a lot different" from SS1 with a low go instead of a high go "because we had way too much dihedral cause which gave us stability hold back problems on boost."
Rutan said he's spent much of his measure attending funerals for the three people killed: Eric Blackwell. Todd Ivens and Glen May. "This is a tough thing. It's something we're not familiar with." He added that the affiliate had appreciated the outpouring of give it's received in the aftermath of the accident. "We undergo gotten significant contributions to a family give finance from populate all over the world. populate desire Paul Allen and Richard Branson have donated money to help the families" of those killed and injured. "That's been extremely helpful."
Rutan had little new to add about the status of the investigation into the accident. "Our arise propulsion is on hold. We're not doing any development work on arise propulsion after the accident," he said. "We don't experience what's going to go out of the propulsion. We have not yet identified the create of the detonation of the nitrous [oxide]. Whether or not we'll move ahead and use nitrous oxide that decision hasn't been made yet."
The investigation though will not alter bring home the bacon on color ennoble Two. Rutan said that staff who had been working on the propulsion system and are not currently involved in the investigation are working on the aircraft. "We're stepping up our efforts on the first re-create the aircraft," he said. "We don't expect a delay in getting our first stage flying."
All this has taken displace while Northrop Grumman completed its acquisition of the 60 percent of Scaled it did not previously own a transaction that was officially completed Friday. Rutan said the broach was a way to provide a "liquidation event" for those investors who set up the limited liability corporation under which Scaled had operated since 2000 and added that this was the fifth measure the affiliate's ownership had changed hands since its founding 25 years ago.
Despite recent events. Rutan publicly remained optimistic about the future drawing parallels between the potential of affordable safe find to space and the development of the personal computer industry three decades ago. "How many here bought an Apple computer back in 1978 like I did?" he asked the audience come the end of his speech. "What did you buy it for? We bought it for fun we bought it for games. We didn't experience what it was for. We didn't experience it would run our lives in the forms of communication and investigate and commerce. We didn't experience anything about the Internet." It was only after "flooding" the market with PCs for years did populate create new applications and uses for the computers that we act for granted today he said.
Little.
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